To advertise or not advertise.....

To advertise or not advertise...
After doing a lot of reading and research, I have discovered that less than 50% of U.S. adults believe that a lack of advertising during a recession indicates the business must be struggling. We might then assume as consumers that the vast majority of us perceives businesses that continue to advertise as being committed to doing business and be business savvy.

I can speak from experience that when I pulled back and stopped my traditional ways of advertising as sales volume fell, rumors spread around town that we were going out of business. Advertising appears to play a key role in consumers' view of how a business is doing. By not advertising, businesses might be signaling to consumers a warning signal about the health and viability of that particular business.

In today’s current economic climate, it is critical to advertise to maintain long-term positive consumer perception of your brand. Advertising assures consumers of a business' reliability, and can often be used as a competitive advantage in projecting the product, service or store to stick with in good times and bad.
So now that you are committed to advertising, where do you turn? The following show today’s consumer behaviors.
· Most consumers are as willing or more willing to pay more for what they perceive as a
“quality” product more than they were a year ago
· Nearly 40% of consumers use coupons more now than a year ago
· When big ticket items were deeply discounted consumers made this their number one
reason to purchase when making their buying decision.
· Consumers often take action within 30 days after hearing or seeing a promotional piece by
TV, newspaper, direct mail, and Internet.
· Store Web sites ranked second only to search engines as the way consumer’s research
products and shop online. 80% of all consumer now Google when looking to buy.

The Internet is a vast space, and your online visibility doesn't stop at your Web site. New technology, a growing online audience and Web at our fingertips make it imperative for your business to develop a progressive, interactive presence online to help grow your company and your client base exponentially. Using interactive tools like videos, podcasts, games and other custom technologies, can effectively help build a multimedia marketing strategy for your business.

As with Ohio State University’s recently improved athletics Web site, the Chamber office will also continue to make advancements in our Web site to assure that our membership has the highest visibility possible in the market place.

“In tough economic times we know we have to optimize our marketing efforts”

Becky Hajost